


A Heathen Hymn

by FyrMaiden



Series: 2013 Klaine Advent [10]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4405451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyrMaiden/pseuds/FyrMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something about Blaine that doesn't seem... natural. It takes Kurt a while to work out what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Heathen Hymn

**Author's Note:**

> A long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
> 
> Okay, no. But there was a time, a long time ago, when I thought it would be amusing to take Twilight style fangless vampires and spin them into something _actually_ noir and creepy. And then I decided to write it for a fucking _one day_ prompt. Luckily, I had the bones of this down for a different fandom, but here it is... Noir Twilight Vampires. Why not, right?
> 
> For the 'human' prompt.

1.

Kurt’s drunk the first time he realises what Blaine is, which is only to be expected, really. Blaine’ eyes are black, red-rimmed, his skin too pale in the gathering darkness, and Kurt – inebriated and leaning against Blaine’ rock-hard shoulder – grumbles hazily that his skin is too fucking cold to bear. Blaine suppresses a smile and bundles Kurt into the passenger side of his car, drives too fast and sits too still. Kurt watches him and his bright blue eyes show a glimmer of the intelligence that lies behind them. “What are you?” he asks, and Blaine glances at him, looks long and hard and, knowing Kurt won’t remember come daylight anyway, says, “A force of darkness.” Kurt frowns and shakes his head, goes to speak except the alcohol and the speed of the vehicle build in his throat instead. Blaine looks at him sharply and pulls the car to the side of the road, pushes Kurt onto the sidewalk before he can make a mess of the shiny interior of his brand new convertible.

Kurt braces his hands against the cold bricks of a building, drops his head between his shoulders as he draws air deep into his lungs, tries to clear the taste of vomit from his tongue, spits and catches his lip between his teeth as his head begins to pound. When he finally looks up, Kurt’s eyes are clearer and his voice is steadier, far more certain, and he says, “I _know_ what you are.” Blaine says nothing, doesn’t even look at him, and Kurt slides back into the car, the low bucket seats enveloping him. He stares at Blaine’ face in impassive silence for a moment and says, softly, “I know _what_ you are.”

“You don’t know anything, Kurt, you’re just very drunk.”

Kurt isn’t so easily dissuaded, though. He studies the road as it races away beneath the car, frowns to himself and then he says, “No. No, I think I know you now. You’re not even hu-” Blaine’ admonition for him to stop talking doesn’t even come out as words. It’s just a low growl deep in his throat, and Kurt’s jaw clicks shut.

2.

Kurt works for the online branch of a popular fashion magazine, sometimes, when he manages to get to work, when he manages to even get out of bed. Most days, though, he finds himself burying his face in his pillows and protesting the rising sun with a guttural growl of his own.

Sometimes the phone will drag him from the tangle of his sheet, the high insistent trill shooting through his brain until he decides he can’t face it anymore and that the only way to stop it disturbing his self-pity is to actually answer it. “What?” he barks into the receiver, or means to bark but his voice doesn’t work after days of drink and very little use. So it comes out as more of a hoarse whisper, and the delighted laughter that greets him tempts him to slam the receiver back into the cradle again.

“Kurt,” Rachel’s voice is soft, enticing, so Kurt hesitates, phone half-way back to the cradle before he puts it back to his ear.

“What?” he asks again, cough rasping in his throat as he clears the last sleep from his voice.

“Meet me for lunch.”

It’s not a question. Rachel’s requests never sound like he’s asking, but Kurt’s used to that. “Meet you where?”

“Nevermind, I’ll meet you there. Get dressed.”

Kurt puts the phone back down and scratches his throat idly, thinks he should probably shower but gets breakfast first instead, runs his fingers through his hair and decides he should definitely shower. Standing beneath the jet of hot water, Kurt hears his door open and close, and he knows it’s only Rachel. Sometimes he thinks he should care more that Rachel seems to think of this apartment as an extension of her own, but mostly he doesn’t. He’s known Rachel for a long time, now. Their sartorial tastes are too different for her to take anything he owns. It’s not her style, besides. When he finally emerges, hair brushed and clean, Rachel smiles appreciatively. “Where are we going?” he says, checking the lay of his pants over his ass in the mirror. Rachel only smiles serenely and puts down the apple she’s holding in her hands.

3.

Blaine disappears when the sun breaks through the cloud cover. Kurt used to think this was odd, and now he attributes it to Blaine’ atypical theatrics. He’s already decided that Blaine belongs to a different world entirely, and so he spends long days propping up various bars and expounding on his many theories for Blaine’ behaviour to anyone who will listen. When the bar isn’t open, he finds himself sitting on a stool in a dark corner of his friend’s boutique, a clothes horse for vintage suits and skinny ties, and Sam listens as he tries out different looks on Kurt’s coat-hanger frame, murmurs appropriately at the right pauses in the stream-of-consciousness mumble that Kurt spews forth.

Occasionally it occurs to Kurt that Sam has no idea who Blaine is, but he’s too caught up in his own epic storytelling to worry overly. Instead, he builds an image of Blaine as enigmatic and mysterious, speaking and acting as if he belongs to a different time or, just maybe, a different world entirely. Kurt would never admit, but sometimes he feels as if the days are slightly longer, slightly more grey – in spite of the warm rays of the sun – when Blaine isn’t there.

Sam gives Kurt ties. Kurt holds them in his hands and says, “I own hundreds of these now.” He doesn’t mean it in quite the way it comes out. It’s not unappreciative so much as an observation to fill in the silence. Sam’s smile is easy, teeth white in the tan of his face.

“Give them away as gifts,” he says, resuming his seat behind the counter. Kurt pushes himself to his feet.

“I’m getting coffee. You want coffee?”

Sam nods, and smiles his wide easy smile again, and Kurt shoves the tie into his pocket, scrubs his hand through his hair and flicks Sam a smile that misses his eyes almost entirely. “Thanks,” he says vaguely, and then, more sincerely, “Thanks.” Sam’s not sure what for, so he says nothing.

4.

Rachel takes her coffee so strong it could almost be tar. She holds a mug between her hands and leans back in her chair, watches Kurt watch her. Kurt folds his hands across his stomach to stop himself playing with his hair and collapses, slowly, to lie on the sofa, staring up at the artexed ceiling. He makes patterns in it that aren’t actually there and smiles to himself at his own Rorschach creativity because it means he can avoid, for a few more minutes, talking.

“Kurt - ” Rachel’s voice is elegant, evocative of other times and places, and it reminds Kurt of Blaine so he presses his finger to his temples and looks at Rachel for one long minute.

“Rachel,” Kurt says in the same tone, and then turns his head to stare back up at the ceiling. He thinks artex is cheap for Rachel, and it disappoints him somewhat. He’s told Rachel this before, but he says it again anyway, and then turns his head back to meet Rachel’s steady gaze. Rachel crosses her legs, and Kurt finds himself grinning at Rachel’s outfit du jour – despite the immaculate waves of her hair brushed back from her face, her petite frame is encased in knee socks and a dress that has actual Scotty dogs on it. Rachel reaches out and places her mug on a coaster, too precise to leave ugly rings on her pristine surfaces, and Kurt looks away quickly because he’s made an art form of not watching Rachel.

“I thought we weren’t doing this anymore?”

5.

Kurt sits in one of Blaine’ expensive chairs and stares out of one of the high east-facing windows as he tries to compose his thoughts. He’d thought he knew all of Blaine’ secrets, and yet somehow this one makes everything else seem irrelevant. In his head, he has justified Blaine’ changing eye colour, his coldness and his distance, but turning up on Blaine’ doorstep (or, more accurately, slipping into Blaine’ apartment building and finding his apartment number from the post drops in the foyer) turns his mind inside out.

Blaine wore a white vest, arms and shoulders exposed to the first tentative rays of the sun breaking through the clouds. He’d pulled the door open and almost closed it again, but Kurt put his hand out and said, “Blaine, I -” and then stopped, because – because Blaine’ skin refracted the light, made it dance slightly, like rainbows or, more accurately (and Kurt knew he was hallucinating, so who knew what was in the brownies), like sunlight on oil, the colours separating into primary shades. Blaine narrowed his eyes and pulled the door fully open, reached out with one bone white (‘Ha,’ Kurt thought, ironically) hand, “You might as well come in.”

And so now Kurt sits in one of Blaine’ expensive chairs, cradles really hot coffee in a mug between his hands, and tries not to think at all. Blaine buttons his shirt against the sunlight and lowers the blinds on the windows, leans against them as he studies Kurt’s face. “You wanted to know the truth,” he says eventually. Kurt nods glassily and puts the coffee down.

“I’m not sure this is what I expected.”

Blaine’ smile is careful but, for once, not condescending. “I’ve tried to keep this – all of this – from you.”

“You didn’t try very fucking hard,” Kurt says sharply and pushes himself to his feet. “Are you going to tell me, exactly?”

“Probably not, no.”

Kurt nods his head slowly, runs his hands through his hair and says, “I guess I already knew you weren’t human.”

Blaine’ laughter is soft, slow and Kurt looks at him sharply. Blaine holds up his hand and closes his eyes, hiding their darkness behind bruised lids. When he opens them, his face is more composed, the angular face of the man Kurt thought his knew. “I’m human,” Blaine says at last. “Perhaps not in the technical sense. But if humanity is desire and betrayal, I’m more human than anyone you know.” Kurt snorts, crosses the room quickly, presses his fingers to Blaine’ pulse points.

“How about we define human as having a heartbeat?”

“Is it that simple?”

“It’s a damn good start.” Kurt drops his hands to his sides and closes his eyes again. “How long since you had a pulse, B?”

Blaine doesn’t answer, but rolls open the blinds again to stand in the sunshine.

6.

Kurt doesn’t look for Blaine for weeks, doesn’t even think about him if he can help it. In his head, he tries to piece together exactly when he realised that Blaine wasn’t what he seemed. He doesn’t know, and he decides he doesn’t care. Instead, he makes a better effort with his job and with his friends, and where he’s lost friends he makes a better effort with old acquaintances. He sleeps less and eats more, and he finds himself lying on Rachel’s couch with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead.

“I’m not just cheap therapy for you, Kurt, you understand that, yes?” Rachel sits carefully in one of her chairs again, and Kurt turns his head to glower silently.

“Yes,” he mutters, and then, “Did you know?”

Rachel rolls her eyes, crosses her legs, steeples her fingers beneath her chin. “Know what?”

“He’s not even fucking human! Did you know?”

Rachel laughs quietly, lowers her head slightly, and Kurt stops to think that, if he’s honest, he’s never seen Rachel when the weather’s good either. But Rachel’s eyes are brown, almost black, always the same colour. She’s lively, though, she laughs, interacts better with people than Blaine sometimes does, but now he’s had the idea Kurt can’t shake the notion. “I knew,” Rachel says, breaking through the reverie. “Or, maybe, I don’t know – I don’t know _him_ , exactly. You clearly have a type though.” When Kurt looks at her again, Rachel sits in perfect stillness and Kurt wonders if he’s ever seen her drink the tar-like coffee she always holds, or if it just keeps her hands warm.

7.

“What do you eat?”

It had seemed like a stupidly easy question to answer when he’d said it, but Blaine’ face had turned to stone and he’d walked away. Kurt had had to follow him, struggling to keep up as Blaine wandered off the path, away from the urban noise of gathered people. “Well, not Italian food,” he quipped, jerking a half smile that crumbled almost instantly. “I don’t – I don’t _eat_ ,” he’d amended, in the face of Kurt’s intrigued stare. “Technically.” Kurt had raked his eyes over Blaine’ frame and decided, silently, that it looked like that could be more than true, so he’d stopped asking for fear of getting the answer he actually wanted.

Now, sitting on another uncomfortable chair, staring glassy eyed at an expensive tank of little yellow fish, he sort of wishes he’d never asked to begin with. Blaine doesn’t speak, doesn’t even stay in the room, and Kurt drinks tea so hot that it burns his tongue, decides that he’s never going to question, ever again, how someone seeks sustenance. He’s never going to turn his nose up at something he doesn’t want to eat, because there’s nothing that can be put in front of him now that will rival the sight of Blaine’ teeth buried in the flesh of a feral cat or an urban fox. He feels the nausea break over him again, and buries his face between his knees.

8.

“Do you have fangs?”

“What? No.”

“Oh.”

“So how old are you?” 

“Twenty-seven.” 

“Twenty-seven.” 

“One hundred and twenty six. Better?” 

“Explains a lot.”

“Would you -” 

“No.” 

“You don’t know the question.” 

“Trust me. You don’t want to live forever.”

9.

Kurt goes out with people who aren’t Blaine. He dances with people who aren’t Blaine. He has sex with people who aren’t Blaine. He tries to pretend he never knew Blaine at all. He meets a man from England, who seems like he could be a good thing, but then he starts comparing himself, insists they find their own replacement moments for the ones he had before. Kurt finds himself pulling away before he ever really let himself be in. In the back of his mind, he blames Blaine for ruining things even when he’s not there.

When Blaine does reappear, his eyes are burning amber gold and his skin is warm to touch, and Kurt can’t seem to remember why exactly he let Blaine walk away in the first place.

He lets Blaine back in, inch by slow inch. He lets him into his life, his apartment, and his body.

Sex with Blaine is inhuman and intense, and it breaks him into pieces that he doesn’t care to put back together.

Inhuman. That’s the word. He realises he doesn’t actually care.

10.

He cares when he’s physically older than Blaine will ever be. Kurt is the wrong side of 30, and Blaine is a flawless, ageless 27. He starts marking off the days and weeks and years until 40, catalogues grey hairs and is meticulous about his skin care and exercise.

The wrong side of 30 or not, he still eats too much ice cream and pizza, and watches far too much Project Runway.

11.

Kurt thinks it’s abstractly ironic that the only person he knows that isn’t a drinking buddy or someone he’s slept with is the person who comes to collect him from the hospital. His nurse smiles at him, and he smiles back. Santana helps him with his coat, and – outside – lights a cigarette for herself. Kurt stares at her. “You smoke?” he says, and she shrugs.

“This week,” she says. “I’m seeing how it works out. Did he -” She blows smoke from her cigarette towards to the icy pavement, and Kurt looks at her sharply.

“Did he what?”

“Visit,” Santana murmurs, fishes in her bag for her keys. Kurt laughs quietly, and Santana smiles one her best all-knowing smiles.

“No,” he says, and he thinks that, in another life, that might have bothered him.

And amends, silently, not that he’s aware of.

_And when the dust settles…_

He hasn’t seen Blaine for almost a month. And at first it had hurt. He’d wondered, briefly, if it was _him_ , and then decided that it probably wasn’t. His fingers drift the crescent-shaped scar on his neck. On reflection he thinks that knowing them was surreal but their absence is, perhaps, his saviour. Sam honks his horn in the street below, and it’s no flashy German import but it’s a car and a ride, and perhaps – for now – that’ll do.


End file.
